adventures in raising backyard chickens… and knitting

Monthly Archives: January 2015

We celebrated our final Christmas last weekend, and I’m happy to report that, despite my kids and I being wiped out with the Flu this month, I was able to complete my knitting project presents for my nephews. One of them requested an “Elephant Man.” I’m sure the images that entered my mind upon hearing this request were quite different from his 7-year old one, so after doing some research, this was the winning pattern from Emily Ivey. It looked so cuddly, I had to knit it in baby alpaca to make it even cuddlier.

I think my nephew was satisfied with his elephant “man”. He jumped up and down with joy upon opening it and quickly commenced wrestling with it on the floor. Ah sigh… boys. I always try to doubly reinforce ALL the seams on their toys.

My other nephew’s present was quite an adventure. A few months ago, I tried to get him to give me a hint about what he’d like me to make for him, and the only thing I could get out of him was that he really liked a hand-spun shawl I had made for my Mom. I thought that might be a bit too womanly for a little boy, but something like a sweater he would quickly grow out of, so I thought a good compromise might be a throw blanket. I used all of the rest of the brown lamb’s fleece I was given, plus another black fleece the same family sent to me already cleaned and carded, with the goal of creating the softest, warmest throw blanket possible. First, I used my hand cards to make rolags from the fleece. I needed about 1 per yard since I spun them very thickly… so I made about 600 of these babies (I tried not to count as I was making them… too overwhelming.)

My Christmas presents from my husband and sister-in-law came in quite handy: an umbrella swift and ball winder!

Together they make perfect center-pull “cakes” so much more quickly and expertly than I could by hand. These looked like chocolate… almost good enough to eat!

I then used this free pattern from Drops for the knitted blanket, and on Size 19 (!) needles, the knitting was definitely the quickest part of the whole process.

Can’t get enough of those cables! I should also mention that Mae had fun helping me with some of the carding and knitting. She’s becoming almost as obsessed with fiber arts as I am! Here’s the finished blanket:

I wasn’t able to make it quite as long as the pattern specified due to running out of wool (which I can hardly believe happened), but I think the length turned out perfectly for him to wrap up in and walk around. He wondered if he could use a clip to hold it in place. I guess he really did want a shawl! I also washed it with a naturally scented lavender-lime dish soap using the same method that I used to wash the fleece originally (soaking it in hot water in my top-loading washing machine) and then I added a tsp of lavender oil to the rinse water, and one of his first comments was that it smelled very good. Such a cutie!

It’s so lofty and thick that it creates almost instant warmth, and feels like cuddling with a lamb (or two!). My kids and my cats (and I) can’t wait for the spring shearing so I can make another one for them. I continue to feel so blessed to know this sweet family and their generosity with their gorgeous wool!

Just when I started to settle into a sense of peaceful complacency with our backyard flock, they have given me a new storyline for my nightmares. They seem to have decided that our 800 square foot fenced backyard is either too small or too boring, and have begun venturing into the front yard. The problem is: as much as it may look similar to the backyard, there are some important differences: cars, dogs, and neighbors… to name a few. This is a first for us. In the past they’ve shown no desire to be out-of-sight of their coop. I completely blame Frances as the instigator (my trouble-making rebellious teen?), and I think the others are simply following along. If they would only stay close to the house, that would be one thing, but our neighbors informed us that they were in the middle of the street the other day. Granted, we do live on a dead-end street, so there is not much traffic, but occasionally we get a car tearing up the street… probably frustrated to discover that it’s a dead-end.

Anyway, I’m not sure what to do now. I’ve started locking them in their coop while we’re not home, but during the winter weekdays, that’s basically all day, so they have no grass-roaming, wing-flapping space, and aren’t nearly as happy. At least we have a nice big coop now, so they are not really being mis-treated, but with the ruckus they make, they sure think they are.

Any suggestions are welcome. I think I’ve found/blocked any holes that they could walk through to get to the front, but there really is no way to keep them from flying over the gates/fence. And I don’t want to clip their wings, because I’m sure they use them to escape the raccoons.

Alberta laid her first egg today, and for the first time, we collected 3 eggs from our 3 hens:

Here they are in order from left to right from: Alberta, Frances & Gloria. Alberta’s looks a little more golden-beige than pink, similar to Cleo’s shade, and it was covered with the cutest white sprinkles. This is Frances’ 4th egg. And here is Alberta’s first photo shoot as a full-fledged hen:

I think her feathers are absolutely stunning now…like stained glass or a monarch butterfly:

But the egg laying politics have begun again in full force. While Frances was laying this morning, Gloria squawked VERY loudly non-stop, like she sometimes would do with Cleo. As soon as Frances came down, Gloria tried to give her a hard peck, then she went up to lay hers. After she came down, Alberta went up, and Gloria squawked again… all throughout. After Alberta came down, all was quiet again. I still don’t understand why Gloria does that. Is it protective? Is it territorial? Is it because she’s the bossy type, and doesn’t like when they are separated, is she trying to tell us about it, or does she just want them to hurry up?

Whatever the reason, we figured we would find Frances’ egg in the corner again, and Gloria’s and Alberta’s in the smaller nesting box, since I saw Alberta sitting in there. While Alberta’s was indeed in there, Gloria had chosen to lay hers next to Frances’ in the corner of the coop. What? Is she picking up that bad habit from Frances? Is it territorial? She always used to follow suit with Cleo’s egg laying practices, so maybe it’s the same reason? After we collected the eggs, Frances hopped up to check out the nesting box, since she saw Alberta laying in there, so hopefully she’ll take the hint, and everyone will start laying in there soon. Sheesh! I will never understand these silly birds and their politics!

Mae wanted to see if the younger girls would come sit with her if she started humming to them like she did when they were small, and sure enough, they hopped right up as soon as she started. (Their favorite: the theme from the “Frances” TV show to the tune of the Hallelujah chorus.)

Since 2/3 of my Christmas celebrations are over and these gifts have been given, I can now share them with the world. I will go in order from smallest to biggest, with a pattern to share at the end.

First, these tiny needle-felted sheep were sent with Lupo the Lamb to the generous givers of my lamb fleeces. I thought they would make cute Christmas ornaments. I meant to post them earlier, but time flies when you’re knitting against the clock:

My kids think they look more like puppies… I guess I need more needle-felting practice. 😦

Next, a little knitted baby penguin for my nephew. He wanted a baby to go with this one I made for him, so I modified the original pattern by Amy Gaines a bit, and used smaller yarn and needles:

And finally, I knitted 2 pillow covers for my Sister-in-law and Mother-in-law. I used 4-skeins each of Cascade Baby Alpaca Chunky yarn, and 20″ down-alternative pillow inserts and they are super soft and squishy and cozy.

I think Mae wants one too. 😉

I saw a similar pattern online, but I thought it looked pretty simple, and I wanted to use a chunky weight yarn for a faster knit, so I wrote my own. Here it is, if anyone is interested. They are a pretty quick knit, and you can take the covers off for washing:

Front:
Basics (Since I like a big picture overview): You will have 3 cable columns of 8 stitches each, 4 purl stitches in between each, 15 stitches stockinette on each side, and you will cable by holding the 1st 4 stitches of each cable section to the front of your work, then knitting 4 stitches, then knitting the stitches held to the front every 12 rows, starting on 11th row. You will also slip the first stitch of every row for a smoother, easier to crochet edge.